Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech, privacy and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. The team is Neil J. Wilkof, Annsley Merelle Ward, Nicola Searle, Eleonora Rosati, and Merpel, with contributions from Mark Schweizer. Read, post comments and participate! E-mail the Kats here

The team is joined by Guest Kats Rosie Burbidge, Stephen Jones, Mathilde Pavis, and Eibhlin Vardy, and by InternKats Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo, Hayleigh Bosher, Tian Lu and Cecilia Sbrolli.

Wednesday, 17 December 2014

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will be to all intents and purposes closed from 22 December to 6 January, though this Kat has no doubt that several of the CJEU's judges, and particularly those of the General Court, will be contemplating the wonderful world of intellectual property law for those two all-too-short weeks while they recharge their judicial batteries. Merpel thinks they'll need a good deal longer than a two-week break in future if they find a stream of patent cases arising from the new European patent package heading their way -- but she suspects that most of the current bunch will have retired before that happens ...

"Bake off!" Not a neweuphemistic expletive ...

Around the weblogs. Shireen Smith's Azrights post, "Protection of Television Formats: the Great British Bake Off", is a neat and well-structured piece on a subject that is close to media lawyers' hearts as bake-offs are to their stomachs. Enjoy it here. Meanwhile, SOLO IP's Barbara Cookson was industrious yesterday, with posts on The Agreed Fee (here) and on the applicability of money laundering regulations to UK patent and trade mark attorney practices (here). On Class 46, Laetitia Lagarde writes up a recent General Court case in which the word mark GENERIA and a figurative mark containing the word GENERALIA come in for a close comparison, here. The QMJIP blog features a helpful note by Axel Paul Ringelhann on the seconf reference of questions for a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Amazon v Austr0-Mechanica, another dispute involving "fair compensation" for private copying under Article 5(2) of the InfoSoc Directive (2001/29). Even more helpfully, Axel has translated the Austrian reference into English, which you can consult here (katpat, Axel!).

Politician takes up EPO Englarged Board of Appeal independence issue. In the House of Commons, Westminster, it appears that a parliamentary question now been tabled in relation to one of this weblog's favourite discussion topics: Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Cambridge, right) gave notice of the following question yesterday:

"To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills [currently Vince Cable], what steps he is taking to protect the independence of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office".

This Kat understands that, End of Year Post-Pudding Syndrome permitting, an answer may be floating down from on high some time around 5 January. Let's see what the Secretary for State says.

Something to read? The December issue of WIPO Magazine is now available to download here. If you don't fancy reading it in English, it's available in French and Spanish too. It has some pretty serious stuff in it, and some lighter content too, particularly for anyone who might be contemplating owning a driverless car. Also published is a fresh issue of The Patent Lawyer, details of which are available here. Finally, for those who love statistics, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published its tally of facts and figures for patent filing in 2013. A whacking 2.57 million were filed, this representing a 9% increase over 2012 and, in Merpel's opinion, a powerful endorsement of the patent system by its users. Statistics for trade marks, designs, utility models and plant varieties are also available, so enjoy!

Ideally, the Westminster politickos should take a good look at the big picture of patenting in Europe, and not merely stop at the bullying of DG3, while leaving the the bully in chief his carte blanche for everything else.

But I see a problem in the fact that in "EPO" there is the hated word "Europe", and the issue is related to "human rights" -- non-starters in the days where a pint and a fag is considered by many as the answer to perpetual mindless austerity policies.

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